I could feel it.
So intense and powerful.
The man barely hanging from a thread.
His teeth gritted when he hissed the words. “You won’t get away with this.”
“Watch me.”
Reed snapped his fingers in the air like the sick cliché that he was. “Let’s go.”
“Daddy . . . no . . . please, I want my mommy!” Mallory squirmed in the man’s hold.
“That’s your mother’s fault,” he grunted at her, not even glancing at his daughter as he stalked down the steps ahead of everyone else. Her feelings and needs didn’t matter in the least.
The exact way as it’d always been.
“Reed, please,” I begged again.
Sophie started crying, her confused, worried sounds piercing my heart. “Mommy! Mommy, need you!”
Daggers and stakes.
How could I explain to a baby what was happening? That it was going to be okay? How could I convince her when I had no idea how to make it true?
I could feel the walls of this old house crashing down around me.
Ian raged at my side. Every muscle in his body rigid and hard, body shaking, held in restraint.
“Please!” I pleaded. But no one was listening.
That was right when I got trapped in the swamp of misery that swam in Thomas’s eyes. At the sorrow and the fear that wracked his little being.
I darted for him. “Thomas.”
The officer stepped in front of me and pinned my arms to my sides. I flailed against him, fighting and begging, unable to see through the mask of tears that blinded my eyes.
I couldn’t let this happen.
I couldn’t.
The officer’s voice was at my ear. “Please don’t make me arrest you in front of your children. That’s only going to be harder on them.”
Oh God.
Oh God.
Thomas’s little voice hit my ears, so contrite and filled with guilt. “I’m sorry, Mom. I didn’t mean to. He just asked where we were on my messenger. He said he wanted to make sure we were safe. I didn’t know I was going to ruin everything. I always ruin everything.”
A sob crashed out of my throat, the words stretched thin, praying they could touch him from across the space. “No, Thomas, no, it’s not your fault. Mommy is the one who’s sorry. I’m so sorry.”
My whispered pleas turned to fractured screams as they hauled my children to Reed’s car.
“I’m so sorry! I’m so sorry. Mommy loves you. I’ll fix this. I’ll fix this.” The cries just kept coming as the sound of the car doors slamming ricocheted like bullets through the hazy morning, the officer still holding me back, while Ian, Jace, and Faith had to watch.
No one with a word that could change a thing.
The barest gray glowed above the trees, birds chirping and flitting from the branches, a hint of the sun chasing the stars from the sky.
It felt like every single one of them were crashing to the ground.
I screamed and wailed as Reed’s car began to pull away, fighting the officer as the crunch of tires sounded over the gravel drive.
He kept me there until the cars disappeared.
“I really am sorry, ma’am,” the officer said as he released me, holding his hands up in apology as he backed away.
The second he let me go, I dropped to my knees.
Torment ripped from me as my skin dug into the hard wood.
Sobs reverberated through the dull morning light, and agony sliced me in two.
Gutting.
I couldn’t breathe.
Arms circled me from behind and pulled me from the unforgiving ground, words abraded and raw. “I won’t let him get away with this. I will destroy him, Grace. Destroy his world before you lose those kids. I promise you.”
My back was to the thunder of his chest, my feet not even touching the ground as he held me pinned against his body as my cries climbed for the sky.
Slowly, he set me back onto my feet, not releasing me as he placed a massive hand on my throat, drawing me back, voice vicious at my ear. “Whatever it takes.”
It was cold and hard and terrifying, and I clung to it.
Believed it.
He released me, and I slowly turned around, shoving back the hair that was matted to my forehead, sniffling and trying to clear the tears from my eyes.
Trying to gather myself when I kept getting rushed.
Wave after wave of agony.
I blinked back at the faces staring at me.
Faith wearing nothing but heartbreak on her expression, the woman hugging her baby boy to her chest as if she were terrified that he might be stolen away, too.
Bailey was nowhere to be seen, probably still upstairs asleep and having no idea of the atrocity that had just been committed.
Jace stared at me. Fury shivered from his skin. But it wasn’t close to what was coming off of Ian.
The man a storm.
An inferno.
Jace’s face was hard, gauging his brother, before he turned and strode down the hall with purpose.